CTA Scan With Contrast

[Julian]

Hello family. I had a CTA of the heart and abdomen today. This morning when I woke up I felt okay but after I got up and got myself together I felt so weak,nausea,SOB. Nothing really new been feeling like this for the past 6 months. It was just especially bad this morning. I took a Xanax to calm me down even though I hate taking those... It didn't help very much, I take the lowest dose and next time might try 2 instead of 1.

I got into do the CTA and my heart rate was all over the map from 60 to 100 for 20 minutes. At that point they gave me a beta blocker and that kept me at 60 to 70 for the duration of the procedure.

The contrast injection was weird, they gave me two shots of it. The nurse said it was a lot for one day. They made me hold my breath and I got this warm feeling all over my body, then I felt like I had to pee. If I would of let myself I could've let the river flow right on the table. That is some yucky stuff.

One thing that interested me was that they gave me a spray of nitroglycerin under the tongue in between the procedure. Any ideas of why that was done?

Well, 7 more days till the surgery and I have pre op testing tomorrow. Sigh.... :frown2:

 

[Freddie]

Come tomorrow, ask why the nitro spray was used (of course you don't get an answer here) along with a list of other questions you may want to ask.

Good Luck.

 

[Julian]

Come tomorrow, ask why the nitro spray was used (of course you don't get an answer here) along with a list of other questions you may want to ask.

Good Luck.

I will thanks! I did a search and found that it is common to use nitro spray during a CTA. I'm still going to ask.

 

[epstns]

Since nitrates (nitro tabs) are often prescribed for angina attacks where arteries need to be as "open" as possible, it is possible that they gave you the nitro to ensure that your coronary arteries were relaxed and were as wide open as possible for the image to be its clearest. They may also use the nitro to give the technicians a baseline to read the test results - as then all of their tests are with the help of the nitro to open up arteries rather than seeing them at random as each patient's arteries act under the test conditions.

Just an educated guess - I'm not a CT tech.

 

[DanielB]

I had a CTA of my chest a few weeks back. A similar story -- my heart rate was 80, and the cardiologist wanted it adown to at least 60, so they gave a number of injections of Beta Blockers. I bottomed out at 60, so they went ahead and gave me tha scan. Sounds like your experience - I recall them asking about the nitro, but don't recall if thet gave it to me before or after the scan, I think it was when I was on the table. Good question as to why they gave it, though I suspect Steve's answer is it. That rush of warm going through your body when the inject the dye was really odd and something I won't forget anytime soon.

 

[hetmarie]

I had a CTA done pre-op and they had a hard time slowing my heart rate down enough. They gave me several beta blocker shots, got me in the machine, brought me back out and gave me nitro to slow it even more. Ask the doc. Probably just to help keep your heart rate slow and steady. Nasty stuff, gave me a bad headache.

 

[Julian]

Since nitrates (nitro tabs) are often prescribed for angina attacks where arteries need to be as "open" as possible, it is possible that they gave you the nitro to ensure that your coronary arteries were relaxed and were as wide open as possible for the image to be its clearest. They may also use the nitro to give the technicians a baseline to read the test results - as then all of their tests are with the help of the nitro to open up arteries rather than seeing them at random as each patient's arteries act under the test conditions.

Just an educated guess - I'm not a CT tech.

Been doing some reading and this is pretty much the reason why, also as hetmarie to keep things more stable. Nice, thanks Steve! Thank you all.